A member wrote something close to this and I wanted to debate it. Except that's rarely the case. Take for example http://www.thorntonacademy.org/ which has the top music program in the state, and great athletics (holds most football championships and just won one last year - also doesn't charge students' families for sports equipment, as many local schools do). They have superb academics. Most of the teachers have a master's, and many have degrees from prestigious colleges and universities, to include: Stanford, Colby, Bates, Bowdoin, Amherst, Oberlin, U London, Syracuse, BU, Northwestern, Wesleyan, Temple, and multiple have Doctorates. It offers 16 AP courses, 42 Honors courses, eight languages, college level courses, over 100 electives, and has a boarding program with international students from more than a dozen countries. And if a parent from a nearby school were to have a voucher, they could send their child to Thornton Academy and have a couple thousand leftover for tutoring (if the voucher program allowed for that). For further information on general statistics, see http://www.edreform.com/2012/04/k-12-facts/ AVERAGE DISTRICT PUBLIC SCHOOL PER PUPIL EXPENDITURE: $12,744
 (Digest 2010, Table 190) AVERAGE PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL PER PUPIL EXPENDITURE: $8,001 
 (The Center for Education Reform, Annual Survey of America’s Charter Schools, 2010, page 15) AVERAGE ONLINE SCHOOL PER PUPIL EXPENDITURE: Fully online: $6,400 Blended learning: $8,900 (iNACOL Online Learning Key Facts) AVERAGE PRIVATE SCHOOL TUITION: $8,549 Elementary: $6,733 Secondary: $10,549 Combined: $10,045 (Digest 2010, Table 63) AVERAGE CATHOLIC SCHOOL TUITION: $6,018 Elementary: $4,944 Secondary: $7,826 Combined: $9,066 (Digest 2010, Table 63)
Better deal for the taxpayer. Better deal for the students. Better deal for the parents. A slap in the chops of teachers' unions.
Cool; you can go ahead and spend your money on parochial schools that teach the following: "Many young people turned to drugs and immoral lifestyles; these youth became known as hippies. They went without bathing, wore dirty, ragged, unconventional clothing, and deliberately broke all codes of politeness or manners. Rock music played an important part in the hippie movement and had great influence over the hippies. Many of the rock musicians they followed belonged to Eastern religious cults or practiced Satan worship." http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/hippies-satan-worship-school-history-book-201334876.html That's certainly your right; you do not, however, have the right to use public funds for your own special brand of child indoctrination.
Troiannii could you explain a bit about how the voucher system works? I recall seeing someone on tv who made points like: Who is going to use THEIR voucher to send their kid to the HS in the ghetto? What about kids who live in other neighborhoods? How many low-income families live near Thorton? I mean, this may all be moot because kids who live in poor neighborhoods are going to go to those schools now, I just don't see how this benefits students.
But at the same time the student who are taught the stuff you speak of are also taught to be very proficient at all the basic and advanced skills and indeed are much more proficient than even the best public school graduates. Looks like a fair bargain to me. At any rate, it's the parents' choice as to what their kids get taught.
Nobody clamors for vouchers louder than African-American parents who care about their kids education. The voucherized schools Mitch Daniels pioneered are filled with minority students fleeing the trashy public schools. Maybe - just maybe, some competition will motivate public schools to improve.
An honest poster would have asked another posters permission to use their words to start a thread, since that did not happen I will consider you to be otherwise. It is the point of the matter, too bad you do not understand that.
Can't disagree with that assertion; it's pretty unthoughtful to take someone's post, quote it, and start your own thread with it. Regardless: " "Contrary to popular belief, we can find no evidence that private schools actually increase student performance," said Jack Jennings, the center's president and a former staffer in the Democratic-controlled House, in a press release. "Instead, it appears that private schools simply have higher percentages of students who would perform well in any environment based on their previous performance and background." The study suggests vouchers for private schools are unnecessary because — once you control for socioeconomic status — students at private schools aren't performing any better than those at public schools. The study says that it is "the kinds of economic and resource advantages their parents can give [students]" — as well as the level of parental involvement in their kids' education —that determines success or failure in high school." Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1670063,00.html#ixzz2Oma7BAGg
So, despite the fact that private schools cost less and produce better results, you don't think we should have vouchers because... those kids at private schools would have done well anyways? We should pay 2x as much... cause cutting costs won't change the quality of the education? Do you work for the DNC? An honest poster wouldn't get his panties in a wad because someone quoted him. Since you did, I will consider you otherwise. Voucher plans vary, but the general idea is that parents are given an amount to use to send their kids to a different school than they normally would. Typically, this amount is directly tied to the amount of money the school receives per student. For example, the average public school costs $12,744
, and so typically the plan is that the parent can take their child to another school and will have up to that amount of tuition ($12,744). Most voucher programs are also cost reduction measures, and so if the private school costs $10,549 (the average secondary cost), the state will cover tuition but pocket the leftover $2,195.
AVERAGE DISTRICT PUBLIC SCHOOL PER PUPIL EXPENDITURE: $12,744
 AVERAGE PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL PER PUPIL EXPENDITURE: $8,001 62.78% AVERAGE PRIVATE SCHOOL TUITION: $8,549 67% AVERAGE CATHOLIC SCHOOL TUITION: $6,018 47% AVERAGE SAVINGS: 58.9% So I rounded. When the public schools cost 49%-112% more... ack, not worth my time explaining.
In over words, you were wrong. Comparing private schools who deliberately leave out underachieving, disruptive, or disabled students to public schools who not only have to teach ALL students, but also provide special education services to private school students is intellectually and morally bankrupt.
In over words? Intellectually bankrupt? So you actually believe that there are no private schools that cost half of what the district's public school does? Remember, the numbers listed were average. I didn't say "all public schools cost 2x as much as private schools." Here, this might help you understand https://www.hookedonphonics.com/ you don't know what you're talking about. You didn't even pay attention to the OP, did you? The example private school takes all of the students from the town that it's in and a few neighboring towns. It has ALL of those towns' underachievers, disruptive, disabled, and special education students. Oh, and then it has some of the best programs in the state, highly qualified staff, and some of the best facilities (few high schools in the area have an observatory). Oh, and it's still thousands less than public high schools in neighboring towns.
Private schools are fine, I went too two from the 7th grade through the 9th before returning to the public school system. I liked these schools because they were cool and fun, different atmosphere then what most public schools usually are. I also met some of the most genuine and cool people among my classmates at these schools. Not that these people don't exist in public schools, many of my closest friends today I met at the public high school. But, I'm getting off topic. I can't really contest at either of them providing a genuinely better education than the other; looking back both held greater merits in different areas. But this is pretty much just based off personal preference; each student could have different experiences based on how they and their family approach education. I don't know how reliable your statistics are on cost. This seems like something that could be highly demographical or dependent on other variables. Like Dave1mo said, public schools provide a greater range of services to all members of the community. I don't know if your argument is to do away with public schools in favor of private schools, but I would be very weary of such an initiative. There is already a lot of disproportionate funding issues with public schools as it is. I believe most communities actually draw a good amount of the funding from property taxes. Private schools should certainly be able to exist to those who may choose them, but they simply lack the abilities to provide the comprehensive education to the public that the public schools do. Education is fundamental to a successful society. We should be trying to grow it, not break away it's foundation. You can argue any way that you want, but private institutes will always establish themselves in a way that increases their profits. Not necessarily a bad thing, but you throw education into that and you would see a shockingly transparent class divisions. Poorer families and communities would be desperately underrepresented under a private-school system. I'll refrain from going into detail about my own economic views. But, I think that most economists would agree that there are at least a handful of services and institutions that should remain within the public domain for stability, if nothing else. Such as police, fire/rescue, education, military, agriculture (regulation/support), and probably a couple more fundamental ones.
To the bold, specifically, I was responding to a statement made about the idea of a voucher program. One poster said that poor people (who voucher programs are usually pushed in the name of) couldn't afford private schools even with a voucher, and that's simply not true. The example private school I gave, more expensive than the average private school, would still save the local community thousands of dollars (if the voucher program was set up for the local community to keep the difference in tuition costs). My point is that cost and class warfare is not a reason to oppose voucher programs, but a reason to support them. I'm not arguing in favor of abolishing public schools, but in favor of a voucher program. The way that schools are set up, public schools receive x_amount of dollars per student (it varies by district), and parents should be given the choice of having their kids go to a different school. In the example I gave, nearby public schools aren't as good, but are generally comparable, except for specific areas (namely Thornton's music program). Much more stark examples exist but, even in this example, giving the parent the choice would allow parents to send their kids to better schools, and would save tax dollars.
Why would families that earn less be taught less? Are you saying a voucher program school being in a geographical area of lower income families would have poor educators? I am not sure what you mean here.
Growing up in Baltimore, MD, jobs were scarce, pay was horrible, and the public schools were terrible. The only way you could get a decent education (Not that the US education is far superior to a few other countries, by any stretch of the imagination) is by going to a private school. Unfortunately, living in these type of environments (There are plenty more in the US, Baltimore is one that I experienced myself), you can't necessarily always afford private schools. In such case, I fully support a voucher system for those who can't afford to pay private school education. This will allow them to chose a private school that they feel will be better suited for their kids. If your posting is true and public schools cost most than private schools, that's even better for them because they don't have to pay anything. I tend to disagree with it because, in large part, not all public schools receive as much money as they are projecting. However, not only would this be beneficial to those in poor neighborhoods, we also have to look at the classroom aspect. With less students in public classrooms, public school teachers can tailor their education to a smaller group of children versus massive amount of kids. Education becomes saturated and it's never as effective as it should be. Thus, you can spread the students out into private schools as well as public schools. Although, with the voucher system, give the families the ability to chose the best education for their kids. This will allow them to make their money go farther than before. I'm a firm believer that knowledge is power. If our children of today become a lot smarter, they won't have to work back breaking jobs to get ahead. They will have the knowledge needed to make something for themselves and become better, overall, because of it. Unfortunately, the system that is currently structured around us is built on absorbing as much money from us as humanly possible without bankrupting all of us. If we do go bankrupt, they'll help us get out of bankruptcy just so they can hook them back up to the milking machine. Mr. Thomas Sowell said it best: [video=youtube;2GklCBvS-eI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GklCBvS-eI[/video]
Why not do this have a tax credit for education and require parents to educate the child as they wish but if they don't is felony child neglect and the state will act, but how they decide to get there is not the states business. I would insist by age sixteen they have a basic body of knowledge via a test like the GED as part of the new social contract on education to be passed by eighteen years old.
The families that have qualifies for Indiana's voucher system have been overwhelmingly minorities. These kids would have otherwise gone to state-run day care pseudo-schools.
Thomas Sowell is great. He's so good, even decades later, I've never heard a liberal that could douse his arguments. They just nod their heads and move on, trying to pretend that he (and people like him) don't exist. I think that justified. The whole idea of offering education but telling parents they are innately unqualified for that is not only unjust, it's stupid. Your *average* parents will care far more for their kids than your *average* teacher. My point being that, while some may say "not all parents would be good at educating their kids," not all teachers are, either. It's an interesting thing you run into with subsidized daycare discussions as well. I've said that I'd be okay with it, if parents could be paid to take care of their own (a stay at home parent), but someone said that's (essentially) unethical and people would abuse it. *shrug* I find it odd that people are generally so trusting of teachers, babysitters, and politicians to look after the interests of our children, but not parents.
The only private schools that are affordable are religious ones based in churches. Because they are owned and operated by the church, many states give the schools the same tax benefits that the churches themselves enjoy. Try and find an affordable non-religious private school, and you will be hard pressed.
